Vercept is joining Anthropic

This is a long post, mainly because I have a lot to say, but in case you are too busy:

TLDR: Vercept is joining Anthropic ! We shared a mission, so we joined forces to accelerate it into reality. Couldn't be more excited!

Why Vercept was started

In 2024, AI coding tools were already becoming magical for developers, but other industries were ages behind. It felt insane that when my mom had IT issues, I still had to hop on a call and walk her through it step by step. Insane that sending a simple email took so many clicks.

That's why we started Vercept: Build something that acts for users instead of telling them how to do it. Two goals: 1) help people do tasks they didn't know how to do, and 2) handle the zero-brainpower tasks so people spend more time on creative work. As simple as scheduling meetings, as complex as reconciling messy financials before tax season. Ultimate goal was to have people spend less time behind screens and more time walking in nature. (Very Pacific Northwest mission 😁)

The ride

The journey of building an AI native company in this day and age was wild. Going from researcher to founder meant trading “reviewer number 2” for business partners and users, but surprisingly a lot of the same paradigms applied. Come up with a hypothesis, design an experiment, analyze user behavior, change the model and product based on the findings, wash, rinse and repeat.

There are some differences though. The pace and the adrenaline. Lows are low, highs are high. We were constantly being challenged and learned at a pace we had never learned before. NEVER! If you are an adrenaline junkie like we are, it's a blast. The joy of the startup adrenaline rush is truly underrated.

Why Anthropic

We raised more than $50M, had a comfortable runway and a successful product, were building full steam with a small team, and were truly enjoying every minute of it. But that's when the opportunity came to join forces with Anthropic. We already knew how great Anthropic was at building models and we admired their mission, but then we learned more about the vision.

We went on hours of walks, had long conversations, talked to members across different orgs, and learned more about Anthropic's vision and commitment to core beliefs which were very similar to ours. The more we talked, the more we realized we had been working on the same mission but from complementary perspectives. We realized that joining forces meant we could build something much much bigger together.

And beyond the mission, I am now a big believer that Anthropic's real moat isn't its best model. It's the people. Incredibly talented folks who genuinely care about mission and real impact over hype. A zero-ego culture obsessed with building something meaningful. The choices were clear: we could build independently and work toward the same vision as two separate versions of it, or join forces with an incredible team and accelerate that vision into reality. The decision became an easy choice. 

What's next for our mission

Mission continues, just got a bigger stage and an expanded team. The goal is still to expand AI beyond just a chatbot, to enable non-technical users to leverage it just as much as technical ones. We're just getting started.

It takes a village

This journey wouldn't have happened without the people who made it what it was. First and foremost, my cofounders Luca Weihs and Ross Girshick . Best people I could've wished for as cofounders. We never once got into an argument, always had communicative discussions and as a cherry on top shared the same sense of humor! I feel blessed and grateful to have these two in my life.

Thankful to our team for trusting in the three of us and showing up day and night. 

Grateful for Seth Bannon , our board member, lead investor, great mentor and the person whose energy is so infectious that whenever we were having a down moment we would say "channel your inner Fifty Years energy!" 

And to our wonderful investors and supporters: Christoph Janz and Point Nine , Yifan Zhang and Jacob Colker and AI House , and Matt McIlwain and Ted Kummert from Madrona . Couldn't have done this without you. 

Onward 🐜